This invention relates to fireworks in general and, more particularly, to an aerial fireworks product comprising two main components, i.e., an upright launch tube and a self-propelled aerial device adapted to be inserted into, contained within and launched from the tube.
Aerial devices such as skyrockets are well-known, as are mortars. Rockets are typically provided with a long stabilizing stick that balances the rocket during flight to keep it from tumbling end-over-end, such stick also serving to provide a means for standing the rocket up against some kind of a support or brace in preparation for launching. Other common expedients for holding the rocket in a pre-launch position include a tube or other open top receptacle which receives the stick while the body of the rocket rests upon or hangs over the upper edge of the receptacle. With such arrangements, the body of the rocket is exposed to persons in the vicinity when the fuse is lighted and as the engine ignites for liftoff. Thus, for safety reasons, the sizes of the charges used in such engines and in the pyrotechnic display materials in the body are typically regulated and closely scrutinized by governmental authorities.
On the other hand, mortars are typically launched from inside upright launch tubes. Such mortars are propelled up and out their launch tubes by a concussion charge that is detonated beneath the mortar but wholly within the tube. Because the mortar has no self-propelling engine and the concussion occurs wholly within the launch tube, the pyrotechnic display charge for mortars is typically allowed by governmental authorities to be significantly larger than that for rockets. Yet, mortars lack the visual aesthetics associated with the exhaust trail of a skyrocket as it arches upward in the night sky.
Accordingly, an important object of the present invention is to provide an aerial pyrotechnic device that combines the advantages of a skyrocket and a mortar without their attendant disadvantages.
More particularly, an important object of the present invention is to provide a launch tube and a self-propelled aerial device that are so designed and dimensionally related to one another that the self-propelled aerial device is received within and housed by the launch tube in preparation for and during liftoff, although the fuse for the propelling engine of the device extends up and out the open top of the launch tube to be conveniently accessible to the person lighting the fuse. The launch tube is tall enough that, when the aerial device is received within the tube in readiness for launching, the sidewall of the tube surrounds at least a portion of the main body of the device, and preferably the entire length of the main body so that no portion of the device protrudes from the open upper end of the launch tube. In its preferred form, the internal diameter of the launch tube is only slightly greater than the external diameter of the body of the device, providing enough room for the long fuse to be trained from its point of securement to the engine of the device up alongside of the body and between the launch tube sidewall and the body, and thence out the open upper end of the launch tube. Flight stabilizing legs project from the lower end of the body and serve as legs for supporting the device in an upstanding, upright position within the launch tube. Except for a tapered nose cone, the device is substantially the same overall diameter from one end to the other.